Fallout creator Tim Cain slams influencer culture for making gamers “abdicate their own judgment"

The original Fallout (1997) creator, programmer, and lead designer Tim Cain has voiced his opinions about current trends in the video game industry, stating that many gamers have stopped exploring and finding their own favorite titles and have largely ceded their video game tastes and opinions to YouTube and Twitch gaming influencers.

In a recent video titled “How the Internet Changed Game Design” on his YouTube channel, Tim Cain looked back on decades of evolving trends in gaming and how players decided which games they would play.

Considering he’s been in the industry since his first credit in The Bard’s Tale Construction Set (1991) and later became a legendary CRPG designer with his breakout hit Fallout (1997), Tim Cain has seen it all.

He’s seen the scrappy, experimental days of game development and the initial market trends when games weren’t really categorized. Gamers would just look at the blurb on the back of the keep cases and decide what to play, with the rest of their information coming through word of mouth or game magazines.

While Cain isn’t vocally opposed to progress, he’s noticed a disturbing trend in recent years: too many gamers are handing over their own opinions to popular YouTubers, reviewers, and video game influencers.

After 2010, video game influencers became prominent on the internet, shifting almost everything for gamers, developers, and fans. In his video, Tim Cain stated:

The 2010s rolled around, and walkthroughs and online videos were starting to be replaced with influencers. I don’t recall hearing the word ‘influencer’ before the 2010s. What was interesting about these individuals is that, more than showing how to play games, they were actually recommending whether you should buy them or not, in a way that differed from journalists.

Tim continued, “Journalists would say, ‘Look at the game, look at all these features.’ Influencers, on the other hand, did things differently. They were like, ‘Here’s a game. I love it. It’s for you, and let me show you.’”

Tim Cain says influencers and streamers have affected the views of video game devs

Video game influencers and streamers have created deeper parasocial bonds and connections with viewers and gamers than magazines and news outlets ever did. 

Consequently, this personal touch has had a broader impact on the video game industry as well. Cain admitted in his video that developers started asking, “What part of our game would make for good clips for influencers to show?”

Players on the other end of the spectrum no longer wanted balanced takes, but rather a trusted voice that would largely tell them what to play and what to avoid. Tim continued:

“Many gamers don’t even look to influencers for reviews. They look to influencers to be told what to think about the games. More people seem to be abdicating their own judgment to that of people they see online.” 

Developers feel the pressure, too, and now many of them obsess over labels—whether their game is an extraction shooter, an adventure title, an ARPG, or an open-world game. Cain dubbed this “probably not a healthy way of designing a game.”

Buy the Fallout: Complete Second Season (Steelbook Edition) on Amazon here